This is just to challenge myself, but hopefully this will be something fun.

The challenge to myself is to make a new Mega Mall stall, start to finish, as a kitbash (in a stricter definition of the term)... in one night. That means, hopefully, before I go to bed tonight, I will not only have pictures here for people to mock mercilessly, but a full bona-fide submission to push along.

There's a couple of reasons I'm doing this. One, as a major learning exercise. Two, I've screwed up some pieces and counts in the previous kitbashes and want to focus hard on a straight-up kitbash.

4:25 pmSo this is part one. No pictures yet, obviously. This is just a quick pick of what I want to do. Every food court in America has that one pizza-place in it... the one that serves exceptionally greasy pizza and strombolis. This is going to be what I base this bash on.. hence, Spegnoli's pizza.

As always, I'm going to grab Venka's Donair Yurt to start the bash from. This time, I'm going to use nearly all the geometry in the original set. There will be a lot of new textures, but only two new pieces included. So... let's begin...

5:50 pmHere's a pretty good 'part two'. This update includes the floors (both 1.5" and 1" made, using 1" for the build) and the main walls. The floor tiles are new but easily made, and I used a quick and dirty weathering trick Paul Senior mentioned.. thanks, Paul!

Walls were color-samped from "that pizza place" and made into a vertical tile. The piping, lights, alarms, are all directly taken from Venka's, with a little shading and editing to let them fit into the new stall a bit better.

Added some new sinage (the map of italy, the stromboli, and the public domain restaurant safety poster). Also added a time-clock image to the back wall.

Both 6" walls are done (used in this build), the 9" wall is done (not used), and the 3" rear door (shown) and the 3" wall is done.

7:25pmThis step is a bit of a doozy, since there's a lot of texture work going on here. This takes all the frontage pieces from Vanka's and redoes them all for our store. This includes the signage, canopy, front counter, and... back door? Weird page to put that on, but I recolored that one as well. Spegnoli's is now taking shape!

9:05pmA lot of progress, but I'm afraid that "real life" has gutted this challenge tonight. This update includes the midwall assembly, with new menu board and more details taken in from Vanka's. This update also includes the 'raw' pieces this set will need from Vanka's, the range, vent, and freezer.

This leaves three more props to finish up, but my children have decided that I'm calling it a night. I'll try to wrap this up first thing in the morrow...

The pizza ovenOkay, since I blew the challenge, I decided to take some extra time and retexture some pieces for the final build steps. The first piece is unique to this set, the "pizza oven". I'm going to take the slightly unusual step of showing how this piece goes together. In truth, it's pretty much just a box with an extended top, which creates the rolling oven.

Pasta BarThis is a heavily-retextured prop from the Golden Dragon kitbash. This was remade to look more like the kitchen props from the Yurt and fit into the mall a bit better. Though I didn't use it, this prop was designed to throw a transparency to the front of the bar.

Soda MachineOne of my custom props. I redid this one to make it both easier to assemble (being in two pieces) as well as match the walls to the overall look of Mayhem. This is the last of the build pieces. (We'll also snag a cash register from the Manuel's set, but not worry about including it in this kitbash...)

That is not blowing the challenge! Sure you didn't get as far as you wanted to, but to get that far with a kibash in a single night is stunning.

Well, thanks for the encouragement. I got frustrated because I lost my last two hours of work dealing with my girls and having to be "The Dad" (TM). But I took the extra time to revisit the three custom props and they turned out pretty well.

Next step is final assembly and them making the Kitbash submission pages.

The Final AssemblyAll right, last build before all those tedious paperwork steps to remap my Vanka's-formatted images over to kitbash pages... gack. Overall, this didn't come out too bad. The walls are a little barren (though so was the original store upon this was based), but that's honestly my only real complaint with it. When I redo this one for TLX, I'm definately going to have to add some wall texturing to break it up...

You should make some pizza box props too. To-Go and Delivery options are nice.

My plan for the TLX versions of these stores was to have two 'outer walls' options - one for the mall (like what we got here) and one to go with Mayhem Apartments/Downtown, which will have a complete store front. I'm thinking that when I Take Spegnoli's that direction, the 'carry out' phone and door will make more sense.

Also note, got the page layouts done for the PDF... so now just to do an instructions page. Whee!

A TLX mall just might be the thing to get me to have a massive modern build. That and a hospital would make me a happy man.

I would love to do the TLX Mall, honestly... but my weathering skills aren't quote up to really pitch it. They've improved dramatically since I started doing these stalls... but they're just not quite there yet.

Of course, the 'store at a time' with mall/downtowns, like I was considering earlier, may be just the thing for the TLX subscription. You can build up the TLX mall as you go...

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